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cmd call to powershell "you must provide a value expression on the right hand side of the '-' operator"

Before I go any further, my experience with Powershell amounts to only 2 days.

I am trying to call a powershell script from the command line with four parameters added to the command. The powershell script simply cleans a CSV file and makes a copy of the file at every stage of cleaning.

The variables a, b, c and d in the script relate to the new filenames (including the full address).

PowerShell Script

param(
  [string]$a,
  [string]$b,
  [string]$c,
  [string]$d


 )



Get-Content $a | ForEach-Object { $_ -replace """""""""""","""""" } | Set-Content $b -Force
Get-Content $b | ForEach-Object { $_ -replace """""""","""" } | Set-Content $c -Force
Get-Content $c | ForEach-Object { $_ -replace """""","" } | Set-Content $d -Force

Command Script

The command script below is what I am trying to run in cmd (note: I have taken out the real addresses).

powershell.exe '\\somefileaddress\CleanData.ps1' 
-a "\\someaddress\DrFA-C.csv" 
-b "\\someaddress\DrFA-C_2.csv" 
-c "\\someaddress\DrFA-C_3.csv"
-d "\\someaddress\DrFA-C_4.csv"

The error message i am getting is:

You must provide a value expression on the right hand side of the '-' operator.

Solution

  • I'm fairly sure that the problem isn't with your script but with how you're calling it. This works for me (without the newlines which were inserted for clarity):

    powershell.exe -Command "& '\\somefileaddress\CleanData.ps1' 
-a '\\someaddress\DrFA-C.csv' 
-b '\\someaddress\DrFA-C_2.csv' 
-c '\\someaddress\DrFA-C_3.csv' 
-d '\\someaddress\DrFA-C_4.csv'"